


Disconnect & Self-Destruct

by cole (elianaredfield)



Category: Karlie Kloss (Model), Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angry Sex, F/F, Modern Assassins, Mr. and Mrs. Smith - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:06:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5767177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elianaredfield/pseuds/cole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's strange, how you can go from being so happy to trying to kill your spouse in your living room at 3 in the morning.  // Mr. & Mrs. Smith AU. //</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disconnect & Self-Destruct

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for Emily (normalgiraffes) because I was supposed to write her a fic for Christmas and I fucking suck. So Merry really late Christmas?? It's multiple chapters so that makes up for it right?
> 
> Anyway, potential trigger warnings for this fic: mentions of divorce, lots of death bc they're assassins, hot lesbian sex?? idk this isn't too bad

Marriage counselling was never something on your list of things to do in your life, and you’re not even sure how you’re here now, next to Karlie, in chairs that feel like iron against your spine.  The clock on the wall ticks in a way that kind of makes your skull feel like it’s about to crack.

You’ve been here for half an hour, answering mundane questions.  You’re more focused on the chip in your black nail polish that looks vaguely like Minnesota.  Karlie is swinging her foot in a way that kind of makes you want to kick her.

“When’s the last time you two have had sex?”

At that, your head shoots up like it might fall off your neck, and you open your mouth to say that that is _none of your damn business because who the fuck are you?  Dr. Phil?_

But Karlie answers before you can, “I actually don’t even remember.”

Your insults die on your lips, like exhausted sparklers on the 4th of July.

You realize you can’t remember either.

And maybe that’s something you should want to rectify, because isn’t that the purpose of this?  This dude with a toupee shaped like a dead gerbil is supposed to ask you questions and make you two realize you still are helplessly, haplessly in love like you were at 26 and 23.  Instead, though, you just feel dull, like your head is clouded, that feeling when you really need a fucking nap.

“Yeah, I don’t remember.”

Your nail polish chips more, and now it looks like Alaska.

* * *

Karlie drives home, and you spend the ride flipping through Pinterest on the phone, ignoring her music that she knows you hate.  A very small sliver of your insides wants to bring up the meeting.  A much larger part melts down the idea like molten lava.

Instead, at a stoplight, you flip your phone screen around, “I think this rug will look great in the living room, don’t you, babe?  Be honest.”

“It looks like it’s from the 1960’s, and not in a nice vintage way,” Karlie replies, eyes sliding away from your phone and back to the road when the light flicks from red to green.

You let out a hum in response, and click through to the website to order it, “You’ll get used to it eventually.”

“If I don’t burn it first.”

* * *

Things don’t feel any less tense at home than they do in that stupid office.  You hang your purse on the hook by the door.  Karlie dumps hers on the kitchen counter.  The carelessness makes fury bloom in your throat, worse than usual.  God, all that marriage counselling and now you just feel even more tense.  A tube of lipgloss clatters from the bag on to the table.  You wrap your hand around it when Karlie isn’t looking and slip it into the garbage, entirely out of spite.

Even the cats have chosen sides.  Meredith bounds over to nuzzle against Karlie’s smooth calves.  She doesn’t even do more than flick her rear end at you.  You let out a huff of breath, sharp between your teeth, “Well, that was a waste of time.”

“Not like you tried,” Karlie points out, before popping a blueberry from the container in the fridge and capturing it between her teeth.  The juice stains her lips a little bit.  You used to find that sexy.  Now you just hand her a napkin.

There’s a shrug of your shoulder, “Not like you did either.”

Karlie gives a hum, one of agreement, then pops another berry, “I’m pretty sure he was surprised that we didn’t fall into each other's’ arms sobbing out ‘I love yous’ by the end.” Her eyebrows lift in mock amusement, her statement punctuated with an exaggerated scoff.  You snatch a handful of blueberries and let a snort escape you.

No words, though.  Instead you retreat to your bedroom, pull out your laptop and shoot your boss an email.  You need a distraction from the mundane exhaustion of today.

Karlie goes to bed sometime around midnight.  

She used to sleep in the guest room only when you fought.  Then the fights happened more frequently, almost constantly.

It hits you that you don’t even remember when she started sleeping in there full time, or when you stopped missing the feeling of her against your back.

Marriage must be a synonym for amnesia.

* * *

You dream about your first job.  Your grandmother and a couple of your cousins had worked for the organization before you, and there’s something about your bright smiles and sundresses and blue eyes that works.  An innocence, like one of those flowers that looks beautiful but poisons you with a single touch.

Your dream reminds you of the promises they had spoken into your ears over and over at first.  Promises that the people you are assigned to kill are all rapists and child-murderers, scum of the earth who don’t deserve to hiccup lungfuls of oxygen.  You know now, years later, that sometimes innocents die too, but they didn’t let you figure that out until you were in too deep to find the surface.

You dream of your shaking hands and the way the cyanide tablets seem so loud in your purse.  You dream about standing in front of a hotel penthouse door, pale and thin and made-up like the prostitute you’re pretending to be.  The door is decorated with golden lions, broad-mouthed like they’re attempting to swallow the earth itself.  You’d focused on them that day to settle your nerves, and when the dream-door swings open, you expect the same cologne-drenched older man to open it.

Instead the door swings open, and it’s Karlie’s face in front of you, smiling like she did years ago.  Everything in the dream tunnels on her face, and you’re crushed underneath the rising vignette.

You wake up with the sheets sweat-sticky and knotted around your throat.

* * *

The next day, Karlie leaves for work before you.  She doesn’t say goodbye, and you wouldn’t be aware if she didn’t purposefully slam the door so the house shook (which she does every morning that she leaves before you, to wake you up in the most frustrating way possible).  She works at some magazine firm as the head of the fashion department.  You remember you used to buy every issue, marvel over her editorials.  Now you don’t even bother.  

It’s okay.  You’re a high-ranking executive of a record label, and it’s been ages since she’s asked to help you listen to demo CDs and choose who to sign on.  Which is just as well, considering the record label, though real, is just a front.

The CEO does not just hand you demo CDs from young artists hoping to make their New York City break.  No, instead he hands you files of names and descriptions and work schedules.  Files that you use to put bullets in skulls, slip poison into whiskey-on-the-rocks.  You’ve risen in the ranks since you joined 12 years ago, at age 20.  You’re the best thing they have, pretty and blonde with a smile like every angel the Bible can name.

It’s best that Karlie never knows that you bring in far more money than you’ve ever written on tax statements.  Especially now, when you can’t trust her not to run to the nearest police station and basically stamp the death sentence herself.

At 9:30, you slip a gun wrapped with a silencer into your handbag, along with an extra tube of lipstick, two spare clips, and your fake ID.  You push aviator sunglasses up onto your nose.

Arms dealer who pissed off your boss one too many times.

What an easy job for a Tuesday.

* * *

Your heels click like heartbeats on the sidewalk, and you melt carefully into the morning crowds.  Your clothes are dark, and though your shoes boost you above most of the people around you, you shrink your posture in order to seem smaller and to avoid standing out.  There’s a light pole, and you break slightly from the human traffic jam to lean against it.

You look like you’re waiting for someone, a friend or something.  And you are waiting.  But your sunglasses hide your eyes, and they scan the front of the boarded-up apartment building in front of you.  You check for any signs of life at all.  You’re well aware this could take a while, so you allow your mind to wander, just slightly.

It stumbles back to your wedding night, when the two of you giggled and tripped your way into an expensive ass hotel room in Bali.  You were all deep, meaningful kisses and hands everywhere they could reach back then.  You remember the way Karlie used to smile when you kissed her, and you remember the way it made you feel proud to hold her hand on the street, how it made your chest swell up like _look at this, this beautiful creature is all mine and you can’t have her_.

You remember how the first few years were great, four times 365 days of bliss and happiness and sunshine coming from inside of the walls of your home.  Then two years ago, things had changed.  You aren’t even sure now which one of you grew cold first.  Maybe it was both of you, slowly freezing until you were all covered in frostbite.  But eventually the good things grew annoying.  The lighthearted laughter left with a rush of wind, leaving behind cold glares and fights.  Your kitchen became a hurricane, and suddenly the only time either of you touched each other was to connect palms with faces or to shove spines into walls.

It’s strange, to think about the storm during the aftermath.  And it really is just the aftermath, a slow but endless drizzle, a dying wind.  There’s not much more coming, but the storm damage still leaves everything flattened into dust.  You can’t remember when you stopped wanting to kiss her at night.  You can’t remember when she stopped saying I love you.

You don’t understand why it doesn’t hurt you more.

Instead you just feel numb, and you wonder if the cold has just deadened all of the nerve endings and now you’re nothing but a dead black core covered by woman-skin.  You don’t think an x-ray can tell you that.

Your thoughts start to drift too far, and you physically shake your head a little to re-align them.   Blue eyes refocus, and you wait again.  This time it’s only a short time before the moment, when you see a shadow brush past an upstairs window.

That’s your cue.

The New York City citizens don’t even notice as you slip past a crumbling wall and through a back alleyway.

There’s a door, and you try the handle.  It startles you how it moves so loosely in your hand, not even locked.  Cherry lips smear into a smirk, and you pull it open slowly and quietly to gag any potential creaking.

What an easy job for a Tuesday.

* * *

Easy easy easy.

That’s what your brain says as you make your way quietly up the stars, weight on your toes so your heels don’t click.  You know you shouldn’t wear them, but it’s kind of just an aesthetic thing by now.  The upstairs floor is a mess, shivering with a draft.  The apartment doors are all open, a maze of furniture thrown out into the hallway.  It makes good cover, so you aren’t going to complain as you click off the safety and settle behind a wardrobe.

You listen for a long time, swallowing down your breaths, focusing on slowing your heartbeat in your chest.  Your body stills, blood slowing and softening, and you wait.  Human footsteps are distinct, a heavy thumb occasionally scraping dust to the side.  And when you hear them, you pop out from behind the wardrobe, viper silent.

He’s at the far end of the hallway, and it’s not worth risking a shot from here.  So you duck low and hurry silently past more furniture, about to duck behind a rotting couch.  And then you collide head-first with someone else.  Literally _head_ first.  The forehead smashes like a metal plate into your nose.  You feel a click, a strange pressure and release all at once, and then your lips are stained with crimson not from your lipstick.

Instinctively, you slip your purse from your shoulder, annoyed and furious, and smash the other person blindly across the face with it.  Your hiss of breath escapes the same time a feminine yelp escapes the other, and you hear a shout of ‘who’s there?’ from your target.

You’re about to ignore the inconvenience, but then your watery eyes clear and you stop so suddenly from chasing after the asshole you came here for you wonder if you’re going to turn into stone.  

Karlie stares back at you, and when your eyes meet, her hand falls slowly away from the bruise forming on her jaw.

* * *

“What do you have in that fucking thing?  Rocks?” Karlie is furious, her jaw freshly purpled like a cluster of grapes.  You tug at your purse strap, still pressing a handful of paper towels to your nose to stop it from bleeding again.

“No, but your fucking head is,” You snarl back.  Karlie glowers, and you don’t break the vicious staring match even as you push your own nose back into place with an agonizing _click_.  

There’s silence for a long moment, just heavy breathing filled up with tangible smoke.  Karlie breaks it first, tone clipped and sharp like a knife, “What were you doing there, Taylor?” Your name sounds like vocal cyanide from her mouth.  Charming.

“I could ask you the same thing,” You reply.  Usually you’d hide your guns.  You like to think she’s never known you own one.  Once upon a time you hid them for her safety and comfort.  Recently it’s just been for your own protection.  But there’s a Beretta holstered at the base of her spine, and you think you can see the edge of something against the rim of her boot.  So you dump your Glock and your ammo on the counter unceremoniously.

Karlie’s eyes dart to the gun, steely and cold, “I asked first.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” You reply, voice quiet and devoid of emotion.  You have a sick, solid feeling in your guts about what the fuck this means, and you don’t know what to do about it.  Do you shoot her right here?  Do you wait for orders from your organization?  Do you ignore it and go back to your shitty life and your shitty marriage and your shitty cover jobs?

Your phone answers that for you, ringing sharply.  You recognize the number, and you pick up your gun and don’t even look at her as you leave the house.

“Swift,” Comes the voice.  Your boss, and he sounds like a tiger ready to pounce and rip out your throat, “What happened today?”

“Ran into someone.  Literally.  It threw me off and the target ran away,” You say, staying calm.  You don’t let nervousness quaver in your throat even though it wants to.  He’s the only person left who can still intimidate you.

You climb into your car and hammer it into reverse, and your boss takes a deep, rattling breath before he speaks again, “Did you know your wife was the head assassin for another firm, Miss Swift?”

“Not until today,” You reply, low, still attempting to be nonchalant.  The confirmation strikes you with confusion and anger all at once.  You feel a hypocritical rage that she has spent all these years lying to you.  You feel annoyance at yourself for marrying a rival.  How stupid.  How unacceptable.

Another pause.  You’re about to ask if he’s still there when the words come through and wrap around your throat, a firm, strangling order:

“Kill her.”

Then the line goes dead.

You realize how hard it is to drive when your hands are shaking, and you don’t even know why you feel like you can’t get your thoughts to steady.


End file.
